Some Of The Amazing Cars That Were Killed At The Hands Of The UK Government's Scrappage Scheme

A few years ago the UK government gave £2000 off the price of a new car for anyone willing to scrap their old vehicle. The full list of the 392,227 cars that died in the process is now available to view, and there are some depressing entries

With the worldwide financial crisis starting to bite hard, the UK’s car industry was feeling the pain in 2009. Desperate to prop up this key part of the economy, the UK government unveiled a scheme called scrappage. The process was simple: you took your old car - providing it had a valid MOT - sent it to a scrap yard, and then enjoyed a £2000 discount off a brand new car.

Five years on, and the government has revealed a full list of the cars that bit the dust, and it makes for miserable reading. Sure, there are plenty of cars on there we’re not sad to see go (Kia Pride, anyone?), but there are a staggering number of incredible cars we’d normally lust after that were sent to die. Of course, having an MOT doesn’t necessarily mean a car is in good, working order, but it’s a fair bet that some were in decent condition before being scrapped.

We’ve picked out 10 of the most depressing examples, but there are many, many more. You can take a look at the full list here. It’s a bit of a mess: it relies upon the information inputted by the dealer which isn’t always consistent for a particular model, and there’s no mention of model years, so you have to assume which generation of a car is being referred to.

Other than the ones we’ve mentioned, which examples depress you the most?